First Impressions
by zebralily999
Summary: Six-year-old Michelangelo is fed up with how his family treats him, believing that they hate him. He decides to run away to the surface to find someone who will accept him. Things take an unexpected turn and the family is changed forever.


**I've had the idea for this story for so long, and now it is finally being realized. I hope you like it. **

**I do not own the copyright to TMNT. ...Do you really think the person that did would be writing fan-fiction?**

* * *

Michelangelo slowed to a jog, his breath ragged and quick. Soon after, his pace was no faster than a stroll, his feet shuffling along against the cold, dank sewer floors. His hands were both held close to his nunchaku tucked into his belt. He was nervous, not being able to recognize the sewer tunnels he was in. That meant something, considered his father Splinter spent a good deal teaching his children all about the sewers-not a subject most kids would like to learn about. It was also silent and dark, which were two things the six-year-old mutant hadn't had much experience with yet. But he continued to walk along bravely.

Memories flashed into his mind, terrible ones from things that had happened barely a half-hour ago. He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes tight, but he couldn't get them out of his head. His hands curled tighter around the weapons. "Mikey, get out of here!" He remembered vividly, the face of his brother Donatello flashing through his mind. Michelangelo felt empty, unwanted. "Yeah, Mikey grow up!" he remembered Raphael saying, chasing him out of the room. "We don't need you here!"

Michelangelo opened his eyes. He wanted to cry, but he didn't. Ninjas don't cry, they fight. Ninjas don't have feelings. Michelangelo may have been the youngest of his family, but he wasn't the baby. But his feelings were piling up inside of him, unbearable. "You're wrong, Raph. You're wrong," he whispered. Michelangelo looked behind him into the darkness, considering going to back to his Lair, where his brothers would certainly still be angry with him. He decided against it and began to sprint in the other direction, farther into the shadows. Where no one could stop him from being himself.

"It's not like I meant to blow up Donnie's invention!" Michelangelo spoke to himself as he ran. "I don't mean to do any of the things they hate me for!" He turned and ran down another tunnel, not even looking at where he was going. He couldn't see more than three feet in front of him, he could barely even hear himself talk from all the noise from the surface.

The turtle sprinted up to a rusty old latter, both of his nunchucks out and ready. He stopped in front of the latter, bringing his nunchaku to meet the old, unstable metal. It felt good, hearing that clang, hitting something. He brought his other weapon up and slammed it against the ladder as well. And again. And again. And again. The loud metallic echo was perpetual.

How long he was there, it was impossible to tell. But he was there until he could barely even lift his nunchucks any more and his breath was coming sharp and quick. Getting out weeks and weeks of built-up anger and resentment. A hit for every time he had heard "Mikey, go away!" or "Mikey, we don't need you here!" The resonating clang with each slam, even audible over the huge amount of noise above, brought him condolence. Slowly, the noise on the surface began to ebb away. Michelangelo could feel the temperature sink lower. It was getting late, but he continued on.

"Take that!" Michelangelo yelled, putting all of his remaining energy into one last swing. After the weapon hit its mark, Michelangelo immediately fell to his knees, panting and eyes wild. He was beyond tired but feeling much better. The small turtle was very proud of the dents put in those old rusty ladder rungs.

Should he go back now? Did he know how?

"Hey, you! Yeah, you!"

Michelangelo leapt to his feet with surprising energy. "Who is it? Show yourself!" He shouted into the endless darkness, his voice high and nervous. There was no movement, no more words. No one was here in this sewer tunnel, for sure. "Huh?" Michelangelo was confused, he was sure he had heard something.

Suddenly, it dawned on Michelangelo. The speaker was on the surface. A human. He barely even knew what a human looked like. Michelangelo had always listened avidly to his father's stories about the outside world, what is was like. He could remember staring at his father's picture of his old family-Miwa, Tang Shen, and Hamato Yoshi. That picture and the glimpses Michelangelo had had of his brother Leonardo's favorite show, Space Heroes, was all Michelangelo had to go on for how humans looked and acted. A cartoon and a moment frozen in time. He'd always wanted more. After all, how could a curious little turtle live six years under the biggest city in the world, full of humans, without seeing them?

Real people were up there. He had known this his whole life, but now he finally truly realized what that meant. "Maybe someone up there will like me," Michelangelo thought aloud. "No one does down here." And with that, he put on hand around the first rung, feeling the old dirty, dented surface. He swallowed his fears in one gulp. "I'll make a friend. Then I won't need those bozos." He brushed his brothers out of his head and curled his hand around the next rung.

Twelve million people in all of New York City, his brother Donatello had once told him. And Michelangelo was determined to find at least one of them who would like him.

* * *

"Mikey! Mikey!" Leonardo shouted, cupping his hands. A sharp gust of wind blew down the tunnel, causing the blue-masked turtle to shudder. He'd been looking for his little brother for hours. "Michelangelo!" He called once more, with only the ensuing chaotic echo as an answer.

"Michelangelo! I am-I am sorry!" Leonardo yelled. The turtle looked sharply behind him, to the place where Donatello and Raphael should be, helping him search. No one was there. Those ones had really been the ones who had hurt Michelangelo's feelings, by insulting him and chasing him out of the lab, but right now they were in the Lair, curled up as they argued over what to watch on television. Leaving Leonardo - the "responsible one" - to handle to situation before Splinter found out what was going on.

Anger bubbled inside him. He began to stomp down the tunnel, eyes narrowed. He sneered as he thought about how mad Splinter would be at those two if he found out Michelangelo was missing and they didn't care. That'd serve them.

* * *

"Raphael? Donatello?" Splinter asked, striding into the Lair, his cane clicking on the ground with each step.

The two turtles froze, their blood running cold even under the piles of blankets they were huddled in. Their movie almost seemed to mute itself as their mind focused to more urgent matters. _Aw snap_, Raphael thought, _there are two missing things he's bound to notice_. The empty spots where Leonardo and Michelangelo usually sat when watching TV where practically screaming for Splinter's attention.

"Yes?" Donatello and Raphael said simultaneously, turning to their sensei with forced smiles upon their guilty faces.

"Where are your brothers?" Splinter didn't even need to ask, he was already catching on. Their expressions were enough of a giveaway, but he was also aware of the fact that never would Raphael and Donatello have the movie "The Karate Kid" all to themselves. It was a favorite of the brothers and Leonardo and Michelangelo watched it every chance they could.

The two turtles hesitated to answer their father. "Well, you see..." Raphael stumbled. Splinter sighed lightly. Could he even meditate for just a few hours without something catastrophic happening?

"You two are going to go help Leonardo find Michelangelo," Splinter ordered, slamming his cane to the ground. The two turtles sat rigid, nodding. "And you will learn to respect your brothers." Raphael and Donatello nodded again, eyes wide. They were not the least bit surprised that Splinter had figured out exactly what was going on with only a few clues to go by; he did that often. The two scrambled out of the blankets - Raphael pushing Donatello to the ground to get out first - and into the tunnels. Splinter followed them.

* * *

Michelangelo hand seemed to be stuck to the last rung of the latter, his body rigid as he stared up at the manhole cover. He was beginning to have second thoughts. Splinter had warned him and his brothers countless times to never venture up the surface. There had to be a reason for him doing so, but Michelangelo didn't know what it was.

He put his hand on the bottom of the cold metal manhole cover. He could feel the pounding rhythm of cars and the inaudible gabbing of people on the sidewalks. He decided, in his six-year-old way of thinking, that he should go up there. It had seemed for the past few days that his brothers hated him and didn't want him around. Surely, in a place as big as New York City, there had to be someone who would accept him.

He listened hard, waiting for wane of honking horns and sounds of moving tires to tell him that the road was clear for him to walk onto. But there was that one, small voice in the back of his mind telling him that this was a bad idea.

* * *

_Splish, splash, splish, splash._

Leonardo ran down the sewer tunnels, his eyes scanning the dark shadows for any sign of his little brother. He was really tired, his legs almost numb from a long time of full-on running. But his determination to find Michelangelo far overpowered his want to stop and turn around. It always would.

_Splish, splash, splish, splash._

He turned quickly, taking a new route down another tunnel. He had no idea where he was now but wasn't at least bit worried about that at the moment. He could think about that after he made sure Michelangelo was safe. "Mikey! Mikey!"

"Leo?"

Leonardo stopped dead in his tracks. It had just been a whisper, possibly even the sound of a breeze of wind or a figment of his imagination, but he could swear he had heard his name. He looked around, and that's when he saw it.

His little brother, hidden so deep in the shadows that the only way Leonardo could see him was from the small light shining on him from outside the manhole cover above. Michelangelo often looked happy and lighthearted, but definitely not now. The turtle was clutching the high rungs of a latter, his eyes white with uncharacteristic malice. His orange bandana, stretching all the way down to the middle of his shell, flapped in the slight breeze.

"Mikey!" Leonardo was so relieved. He began to run towards his brother.

In barely a second, Michelangelo pushed open to manhole and dashed out. Leaving Leonardo alone to stand alone in the dark, completely shocked, as the cover slid back into place.

"Mikey?"

* * *

**How'd you like it so far? If you hated it, loved it, misunderstood it, worshipped it, let me know. I love feedback and constructive criticism. If I get at least five reviews for this chapter, proving someone actually cares what happens in this, I will make it into a longer, more complex story. If not, it will only have one more chapter. You decide!**


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